Rick

Article 1 Section 8 of the constitution, all American's should know it. It's We the people not I the individual.

[X @Xking332]

Horror in Dubai.

A 24 year old American female airline worker in Dubai has been arrested.

Dubai police installed a surveillance tool on her phone.

Without her consent.

They found her sharing an image of a burning building with her mother.

So they set a trap.

They pretended to be her office staff and called her in for a meeting yesterday.

When she arrived, she was arrested.

2 years in jail.

That spying tool is installed on every foreigner's device in Dubai.

That means the Dubai Police are watching everything foreigners send to their families.

Every message. Every photo. Every video.

Including the most intimate moments.

Dubai has denied her a lawyer.

[Rick @rick_trow]

@BernieSanders Arrogance ignorance violence conservative summed up.

[Linda @Lindademocat]

@jonfavs @Brian_Chovanec

[Mel @Villgecrazylady]

Israel is now conducting nuclear tests.

Make no mistake: this is a message to Trump and the world.

As I’ve said repeatedly, there is no way forward for Israel after Gaza. What they’ve done there is worse than any of us can imagine. When the full scale of that catastrophe is revealed, Israel will be a geopolitical pariah.

Their only option is full scale regional war that itself is so devastating, what happened in Gaza will just blend in.

These people are friggin’ lunatics and an existential threat to all of humanity.

[Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 @JoshEakle]

The reporting just keeps getting worse for ICE.

Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:

1) Renee was not an activist
2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school
3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

In Italy with @yanisvaroufakis

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

The judge’s ordeal epitomising Europe’s disappeared values.

Let us, for a moment, entertain the fanciful hypothesis that Europe cares about its values. Imagine a Europe where the principles so lavishly inscribed upon the banners of the European project – the rule of law, the dignity of the individual, a commitment to strategic autonomy – are more than just rhetorical filigree for grand speeches in Brussels.

In this parallel Europe, the story emerging from the pages of Le Monde concerning Judge Nicolas Guillou, the French magistrate at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, would be the political scandal of the century. It would be the kind of affair that topples governments and reignites a proud European mindfulness.

But we do not inhabit that Europe. In this really-existing Europe, Guillou’s ordeal has been shrugged off, a symptom of our continent’s descent into a state of uncontested vassalage.

Stripped bare, the facts of the case are disconcerting beyond measure. Before us we have a French citizen. A magistrate of some note sitting on the bench of the ICC which European diplomacy went to great lengths to establish so as to turn the page from a past in which war criminals could hide behind their governments’ shielding. Meticulously following the procedures of his institution in the execution of his sworn duties, this judge authorized arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister for alleged war crimes in Gaza. In response, US President Donald Trump’s administration sanctioned Guillou.

The imposed sanctions are a masterclass in the evisceration of European sovereignty. They render Guillou a non-person, not only in the United States, but also in his own country – the beating heart of Europe. He has been locked out of the global digital realm (WhatsApp, all Google apps, and social media like Facebook and Instagram). Even his French bank account is virtually useless, given the ban on all payments that require the cooperation of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and the supposedly European SWIFT interbank messaging system. As if that were not enough, when he recently tried to book a hotel room in France, Expedia canceled his reservation a few hours later.

Trump’s success at “flooding the zone” with outrageous behavior must not cause us to miss the significance of these developments. The US government has decided to sanction – or, essentially, de-person – a European judge for carrying out his official duties in Europe while working in an institution established by Europe’s elected representatives at great cost and effort.

The real tragedy is not that Trump is throwing his weight around. It is in the nature of hegemons to bully those who inconvenience them. The real tragedy, or perhaps farce, lies in Europe’s reaction. Did our governments respond with a unified, thunderous condemnation? Did they trigger retaliatory measures and immediately create European financial and digital channels to protect their own judiciary and citizens from extraterritorial bullying? Alas, the response was a tragicomic spectacle of utter and complete acquiescence.

European banks, cowed by a stern look from a US Treasury official in Washington, rushed to close Guillou’s accounts. European companies, whose compliance departments act as extensions of the US authorities, refuse to provide him services. Meanwhile, European institutions – the Commission and the Council – look the other way, wringing their hands and muttering platitudes about the “complexities” of transatlantic relations. They are not merely failing to protect Guillou; they are actively enforcing US sanctions against their own citizen.

During a week when European leaders loudly protested how the US had sidelined them in drawing up a peace deal for Ukraine, their silence over Guillou’s treatment completely normalized the erosion of their authority. From Trump’s perspective, they swapped the challenging, messy project of sovereignty for the comfortable decline of a US protectorate.

How else could French President Emmanuel Macron have expected Trump to interpret his decision to treat the economic assassination of a French judge on French soil as nothing more than an unfortunate technical glitch or a minor bureaucratic snafu? Did he and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz really believe that sacrificing their citizens to Trump would gain them a seat at the negotiating table on issues such as Ukraine and Palestine, which are of existential importance to Europe?

No, Guillou’s Kafkaesque nightmare should not surprise us. What should be shocking is the silence surrounding it. We should be outraged not only by US actions, but also by Europe's inaction. Guillou’s case is a stark metaphor for Europe itself:

A union of nation-states that helped build an international court to uphold its values, allowing a foreign power to punish its own judge for doing so, and then helped to enforce the punishment. This is a union that has lost its way, its soul, and its spine, turning Europeans into willing extras in the theater of our own diminution.

When, in a few years’ time, almost everyone is claiming that they opposed Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, the world will remember Judge Guillou fondly. But the world will also remember Europe’s leading politicians not just for their cowardice but for their inattention to the simple fact that those who fail to uphold their own values become irrelevant.

https://t.co/TLri5QP4Ah

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Yup. That is for sure correct

[The Debt Collective 🟥 @StrikeDebt]

Surprise surprise.

POLITICO's newest affordability survey shows adults can't keep up with groceries, housing, health care, utility bills and debt repayments.

AI data centers, giant corporate landlords and a profit driven health care system are fucking us.

[Our Revolution @OurRevolution]

New report reveals just 20 billionaires flooded elections with $5 BILLION between 2015 and 2024.

Bernie is right: we must overturn Citizens United and get dark money out of Democratic primaries.

Our movement pushed the DNC to reject it for the 2028 primary — now we're calling on state parties to ban it in 2026.

Add your name to the petition to party leaders: https://t.co/2YapKvteEA

Read more in @commondreams: https://t.co/Q02lVai5nh

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Refugees didn’t underfund our schools.

Refugees didn’t privatise our public services.

Refugees didn’t close our hospitals.

Stop scapegoating refugees and tackle the real cause of society’s ills: a rigged economic system that concentrates wealth in the hands of the few.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

We now have an unprecedented level of income & wealth inequality.

It isn’t acceptable that the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 93%, while a majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

We must stand together & create an economy that works for all, not just the few.

[Richard Angwin @RichardAngwin]

history never forgets

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

A powerful new street art installation in London features provocative portraits depicting figures dressed in attire reminiscent of Nazi uniforms.

[Damaan, AKA 'Philly's Finest!' @Damaan4u33]

Germany 2.0????

[Zohran Kwame Mamdani @ZohranKMamdani]

Congratulations, @AndrewCuomo. I know how hard you worked for this.

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

Republicans are celebrating the passage of the largest Medicaid cut in U.S. history to pay for the largest tax break for billionaires in American history.

51,000 Americans will die each year so that the top 1% can get a $1 trillion tax break.

This bill is a death sentence.

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

17 million people just lost health care.

18 million kids just lost school meals.

3 million Americans just lost food assistance.

And $3.5 trillion was added to the deficit.

All for a tax cut for Trump’s billionaire donors.

The ultimate betrayal.